confusion about Thermonuclear Fusion

The money wasted on thermonuclear fusion could have been spent to install
solar electric and solar thermal panels on a significant percentage of
the buildings in the US.

Thermonuclear fusion would generate large amounts of radioactive waste
and has secret military purposes.

The primary reason it is still a pipe dream is it's not very easy to
capture 100 million degree celsius plasma and keep it from destroying
your laboratory.

The deuterium / tritium fusion reaction (the type of fusion easiest
to achieve, requires the lowest temperatures) releases a very high energy
neutron that can "induce" radioactivity in nearby materials.

Deuterium + Tritium --> Helium + free neutron

Helium: two protons, two neutrons
Deuterium: one proton, one neutron (heavy hydrogen, also called "heavy
water")
Tritium: one proton, two neutrons (the radioactive isotope of hydrogen)

There have been proposals for building "fusion reactors" that
could make nuclear weapons materials by surrounding the core with uranium-238,
otherwise known as "depleted uranium" - which the free neutrons
would convert to plutonium-239 (the most important ingredient for nuclear
weapons).

The steel supports of this hypothetical fusion reactor would periodically
have to be replaced because the free neutrons would induce radioactivity
in the metal. Claims that fusion would be free of radioactive waste are
a cruel deception.

The real way to capture thermonuclear energy is with photovoltaic panels.

Thermonuclear reactor research is part of weapons research. Some forms
of it are used to simulate nuclear explosions in a laboratory. It has
virtually nothing to do with electricity generation.

Some fusion advocates note that fusion reactors would not release any
carbon dioxide, and therefore would not have any impact on climate change.
However, they ignore the fact that an enormous amount of heat would be
liberated that would have massive impact on local and global climate.

A fusion reactor, if one could ever be built that would last for more
than microseconds, would generate 100 million degree temperatures (Celsius).
Just imagine what replicating stars in our power stations would do to
local climate patterns. This makes the impact of our combustion of fossil
fuels seem minor in comparison. Thermonuclear reactors would use the 100
million degree heat to boil water to spin a turbine to make electricity. If fission reactors (which only get about 500 degrees) are the
equivalent of using a chainsaw to cut butter, thermonuclear reactors would
be the equivalent of bringing a part of the Sun to the Earth to melt the
snow off your sidewalk.

"Hot fusion" should be prohibited
on planets and confined (so to speak) only to stars.

The claims for "cold fusion" may or may not have validity --
links to the more sober claims are at http://www.oilempire.us/free-energy.html (a permaculture view of claims for "free energy"). If this is
real, that would be worth pursuing (there does seem to be some corporate
interest in these claims, which suggests at least some level of reality
to the technology).

Renowned Physicist Promotes Fusion as the
Solution, But Doesn't Consider Climate Impacts of 100 Million Degree Plasma
Or How to Cope With Peak Oil Now

Kip S. Thorne Lecture
Thu, Mar 24 2005
University of Oregon

"Einstein's Legacy in the Modern World: From Black Holes to Quantum
Cryptography" In this free lecture, renowned theoretical physicist
Kip S. Thorne will trace back to Einstein such technologies as thermonuclear
power, the global positioning system, lasers, bose condensates, and quantum
cryptography; and such major cosmological concepts as black holes, wormholes,
singularities, gravitational waves, and the shape of our universe. Kip
Thorne is a professor at the California Institute of Technology and author
of "Black Holes & Time Warps, Einstein's Outrageous Legacy."
The lecture is held in association with the 21st Pacific Gravity Meeting
at the UO March 25 and 26 and is part of the 2005 World Year of Physics
celebration.

Professor Thorne praised the possibilities of thermonuclear fusion as
a replacement energy source for the technologies currently used by industrial
civilization. However, he admitted that its implementation, if all went
well, would still be several decades in the future. When asked after the
lecture what solutions he would propose for the interim between Peak Oil
and the year 2050, he did not have an answer, although he conceded that
photovoltaics could play a role (when asked about this low-tech means
of harnessing thermonuclear fusion from the sun). He also claimed that
the free neutrons emitted by a thermonuclear fusion reaction would quickly
decay and would not induce radioactivity in nearby structures (given that
he makes bets on theoretical physics with Steven Hawking, it's probable
that he's right on this point). But, he did not apparently think through
the impact of massive creation of localized heat sources with the thermonuclear
plasma (100 million degrees) and the impact this heat would have on the
Earth's biosphere and climatic stability.